PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY

Overview
What is Electron Diffraction
 LEED & RHEED
LEED RHEED

History What is RHEED

Basic Principle Basic principle

Instrumentation Insrumentation

How to Use Data collection

Examples Examples

Comparison of LEED & RHEED Complication in

LEED
 Conclusion
Refferences
 Electron Diffraction
• The phenomenon associated
with the interference processes
which occur when electrons are
scattered by atoms in crystals to
form diffraction patterns.
• Types of Electron Diffraction:-

Electron diffraction

Low Energy Electron Reflection High Energy Transmission High Energy

Diffraction Electron Diffraction Electron Diffraction
LEED RHEED THEED
Electron Diffraction
 Introduction to Low energy electron
diffraction-LEED
• LEED = Low Energy Electron Diffraction
– Incoming electron beam (< 500 eV) is perpendicular to sample

Low energy electron diffraction mainly used for surface characterization

 Introduction to Reflection High energy
electron diffraction-RHEED
• RHEED = Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction
– Incoming electron beam (10~50keV) has glazing angle to sample

RHEED is an important method to achieve surface sensitivity

LOW ENERGY ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
LEED
 What is LEED
• Low-energy electron
diffraction, is a technique
for the determination of
the surface structure of
crystalline materials by
bombardment with low
energy electrons (20-
500eV) and observation of
diffracted electrons as
spots on a fluorescent
screen.
• The pattern of spots
contains information of
surface structure and the
spot intensity indicates
reconstruction.
Fig: Schematic of a LEED
 History
• Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) = e– in, e– out
(elastic)
• 1924: Discovered accidentally by Davisson and Kunsman
during study of electron emission from a Ni crystal.
• 1927: Davisson and Germer found diffraction maxima
for:
– nl = D sinf where D = surface spacing, l = electron wavelength

• 1934: Fluorescent screen developed by Ehrenburg for

data imaging.
• 1960: UHV technology enabled LEED of clean surfaces.
 Instrumentation of LEED
• A sample holder with the Grid 1: retarding voltage
prepared sample (selects only elastic electrons)
• An electron gun
• A display system, usually a
hemispherical fluorescent
screen on which the diffraction
pattern can be observed directly
• A sputtering gun for cleaning
the surface
• A number of highly transparent
grids are placed in front of the
screen.

Grid 2: accelerating voltage

(creates fluorescence on screen)
 Information obtained from LEED
• LEED is the principal technique for the determination of
surface structures.
• It may be used in one of two ways:
 Qualitatively : where the diffraction pattern is recorded and
analysis of the spot positions yields information on the size,
symmetry and rotational alignment of the adsorbate unit cell
with respect to the substrate unit cell.

 Quantitatively : where the intensities of the various diffracted

beams are recorded as a function of the incident electron
beam energy to generate so-called I-V curves which, by
comparison with theoretical curves, may provide accurate
information on atomic positions.
Structural
Information by
LEED
 What is Real Space and Reciprocal Space?
Real Space (i.e. spacing of surface atoms in nm)

Reciprocal-Space (i.e. spacing of diffraction spots in nm–1)

2
G
a

larger real-space smaller reciprocal-space

Phys 661 - Baski Diffraction Techniques
Substrate & over layer LEED pattern

Only Substrate

Substrate +Adsorbate
Intensity
Measurement
by LEED
Structure determination procedure
LEED pattern reflects the size and shape of the real space unit cell. But it says
nothing about the positions of the atoms in the real space unit cell i.e the
structure --------
This is why surface structure determination by LEED requires the
measurement and analysis of intensities.
STEPS
Images obtained in LEED
Complications and other aspects of LEED

• Electron beam damage – sensitive molecular

adsorbates.
• Domain structure
 If two domains with different structure coexist ⇒ easy to
distinguish.
 But sometimes difficulties exist (e.g., 3 domains of p(2x1)
on fcc (111) = (2x2)
REFLECTION HIGH ENERGY ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
RHEED
What is RHEED?
 In order to extract surface
structural information from the
diffraction of high energy
electrons, therefore, the technique
has to be adapted and the easiest
way of doing this is to use a
reflection geometry in which the
electron beam is incident at a very
grazing angle - it is then known as
Reflection high-energy electron
diffraction (RHEED)
 RHEED theory is very similar to
LEED.
 Basic Principle of RHEED
 A high energy electron beam(10-
30Kev) is directed at the sample
surface at a low incident angle(1-
20).
 The electrons are diffracted by
the crystal structure of the
sample being investigated
 Then projected on a fluroscent
screen mounted opposite the
electron gun.

NB: The combination of grazing incidence

and strong electron-substrate interactions
reduces the penetration depth of incident
electrons to a few monolayer's.

Fig:-Electrons hit the surface at different grazing angle

 Instrumentation of RHEED
• A sample holder with the
prepared sample.
• An electron gun-The electron
gun generates a beam of
electrons which strike the
sample at a very small angle.
• Photo-luminescent detector
screen- which collect the
diffracted electrons & form
the regular pattern on the
screen.
• although modern RHEED
systems have some additional
parts to optimize the
technique.
Figure:- The most basic setup of a RHEED system.
 Images obtained in RHEED

Graphene growth by molecular beam epitaxy :

RHEED diagram (160 eV)

RHEED diagram : SiC surface structure evolution with

Si dose
 What, if any, advantages does
RHEED offer over LEED?
• In terms of the quality of the diffraction pattern
absolutely none in RHEED.
• By using RHEED it is therefore possible to
measure, and hence also to control, atomic layer
growth rates(i.e to monitor the atomic layer-by-
atomic layer growth) in Molecular Beam
Epitaxy(MBE) growth of electronic device
structures -this is by far and away the most
important application of the RHEED technique.
 EXPERIMENTAL DATA LEED RHEED

Range of elements All All

Destructive No, except in special cases Same as LEED.
of electron-beam damage.
Depth probed 4-20Å. 2-100Å .
Detection limits 0.1ML; atomic positions to Same as LEED.
0.1Å .
Resolving power Typically 200Å; best Same as LEED.
systems 5mm
Lateral resolution Typically 0.1mm; best 200mm x 4mm; best
systems ~10mm. systems 0.3nm x 6 nm.

Imaging capability No; need special No.

instruments – LEEM.
Main uses Analysis of surface Monitoring surface
crystallography . structure, in-situ growth .

Cost <75K€ 50k-200k€.

LEED is (still) the most frequently used surface structural method
 References
 Surface Characterization By D.Brune & R. Hellborg.
http://philiphofmann.net/surflec3/surflec014.html
http://hpcrd.lbl.gov/~meza
Optimization Methods for Simulation-Based Problems in
Nano Science By Juan Meza, Michel van Hove, Zhengji Zhao
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
www.wikipedia.org
THANK YOU